Demand for displays with heightened performance is increasing, including with the growth of smart phones and high-definition televisions, as well as other electronic devices. The growing popularity of virtual reality and augmented reality systems, particularly those using head mounted displays, has further increased such demand. Virtual reality systems typically envelop a wearer's eyes completely and substitute a “virtual” reality for the actual view (or actual reality) in front of the wearer, while augmented reality systems typically provide a semi-transparent or transparent overlay of one or more screens in front of a wearer's eyes such that actual view is augmented with additional information. In many virtual reality and augmented reality systems, the movement of a wearer of such a head mounted display may be tracked in various manners, such as via sensors in the head mounted display and/or external to it, in order to enable the images being shown to reflect user movements.
However, such head mounted displays, with reduced distance between a viewer's eye and the display and often with a fully obscured field of view, have increased the performance requirements of displays in ways that traditional displays cannot satisfy, let alone to do so at cost-effective levels. Accordingly, needs exist for improved display panels, and for improved techniques for manufacturing and using display panels.